I just spent way too long looking at photos of Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their daughter, Suri. Other than the creepy cult angle, the thing that makes this relationship so interesting is the fact that we saw it all play out for the cameras, from beginning to (presumed) end. We feel like we know these people, or at least whatever they wanted us to know about them, and there was plenty. There are tons of photos of them together, except for the past few months where they’re few and far between. If you play photo assumption, you can almost see the trajectory of their relationship. Just join me for a moment, with the caveat that this is a very superficial look into their relationship.

2005: The Beginning
Do you remember how these two used to act in public? I do, it was cringe-inducing, from couch jumping to hanging all over each other. They looked genuinely happy and in love, you have to give them that. We know Katie isn’t that skilled an actress.

Family Time, late 2005 to 2006
Katie and Tom used to attend sports games for his kids, Isabella and Connor, and they seemed to invite the paps every single time. They did attend some games after Suri was born, but after late 2006 their focus changed, or maybe the kids just stopped playing as many sports.

Suri’s unveiling, September 2006
Suri was (allegedly) born on April 18th, 2006. She was unveiled in a huge spread in Vanity Fair’s October issue, which came out in early September. There was plenty of speculation about why and how Suri was kept from the paparazzi for so long after her birth. Tom later told Oprah in a May, 2008 interview at his Telluride estate that they were holed up at home with the baby for the first few months after she was born. He also revealed at the time that he had renamed Katie “Kate.”

Wedding in Italy, November 18, 2006
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes married in a lavish Scientology ceremony in Bracciano, Italy in November, 2006. There was speculation at the time that the wedding would not be legally binding, but I think that the recent divorce filing proves that it was. This also marked one of the first times that Suri was seen in a candid photo op, one of many to come.

2007, Katie gets her groove back
2007 saw the emergence of Katie Holmes’ heels. She ditched the flats after she married Tom and began to show a taller, more independent side. In late 2007, she got a daring pageboy haircut.

2007, Suri becomes a star
Tom and Katie eased Suri into public life with photo ops in Berlin in August and in London in December. She was such a cute little thing and looked like she was hamming it up for the cameras from the start.

2008: Happy Family.
In 2008, Katie and Tom look like a happily married couple settled into an easy groove with each other. In these photos, they seem to radiate how content they are.

2009: Stress and traveling
By late 2009, there were photos of the family looking tired and stressed, even when they were posing for candid photo ops.

2010: Something’s changed
Look at Katie’s face in these event photos compared to how she used to look at Tom. She looks tired and worn out, and like she’s trying to force it for the cameras.

2011: Katie’s over it
Maybe I’m reading too much into photos, but Katie was practically pulling away from Tom at some points. In many candids she looked tired and wan.

2012: Katie’s escape is near
Do you think Katie had already hatched her escape plan at this point? Is that why she’s got a twinkle in her eye again? That’s my theory. Look at her, she’s up to something.

Comments are Closed

There’s a new report that she’s terrified he would send Suri to Sea’Org. That’s like a slave labor camp. This is one report I don’t believe. Why? Bella and Conner never went. I mean at his height of craziness about the religion the kids were the perfect age to go and never did.

Maybe is because there are not Tom’s biological children? Tom is one of the highest Scientologist (John Travolta has nothing on him when it comes to Scientology) Suri is very valuable to CoS. There is a reason Katie wants full custody.

Love this analysis!! Very well done. You can really see the changing dynamic between them. I think Suri is the reason Katie woke up and realized: OMG I am in a freaking cult and my husband wants our daughter to go to the Sea Org (aka military ship) GO KATIE!

Remember all that talk of Tom putting her movies with him, as he did with Nicole? In these early pics, that promise hadn’t yet been broken…I can imagine it was much easier to seem enthusiastic if she really thought she was about to be A-list, automatically.

Yup. I think the rumors of her discovering she was pregnant before their contract was worked out are true. I think she was a Catholic girl who saw a quick way to legitimize her surprise pregnancy, and become a rich a-list star. She was WAY too naive about TC & Co$!

Anyone else remember Katie’s belly button was already popped out when she was supposedly only a few months along? And her shape-shifting bump those last few months before Suri’s ‘official’ birthday? Like most, I think Suri is about 3 months older than they claim.

Thanks for the photo perspective, & I agree w/all you stated Celebitchy, w/one exception…..I think Katie must be a FABULOUS ACTRESS because she’s obviously pulled off some Oscar-worthy acting in order to catch Tom Cruise off-guard w/the divorce.

Actually, that was my very first thought when I read the headlines about the divorce….I thought, “WOW, she’s caught Tom by surprise by filing the divorce? She has pulled off some really SICK ACTING SKILLS!”

Hooray for Katie!!! (not “Kate,” as Tom would like us to refer to her as!)

Which ever way you look at it, she definitely has some great skills if she can fool co$/Tom in order to get away or if the whole thing is a set up and she’s playing at miserable, depressed convincingly for the public.

Yeah, few people give Katie the acting props she deserves. Is she an amazing actress? No, but I think she’s far better than most people think. Plus, the more you practice something, the better you get at it, so it’s no surprise that after all these years with Tom that she’s got some skills.

I don’t think Suri would be going to the sea org…but I do think that Scientology has some big plans for her and whatever they are, Katie doesn’t want Suri to have any part in it…unfortunatly, Tom will have access to Suri and I am afraid that even if Katie gets custody now, when she is a teen Tom will get Suri back in to the cult…

I agree. I don’t buy that story. Connor and Bella were at the perfect age to go tween/young teen when Tom was at the height of his craziness regarding Scientology and he had full custody it appeared, and they never went.

Nah. If Suri is brought up in private school, her friends will be her be all. When you’re a teen, it’s not your parents that have the biggest influence over you. Your friends are your life. LOL I can’t see her being sucked into Scientology all of a sudden as a teen.

If Tom Cruise has a say, she will go to a Scientology school- if he wants to be sneaky, maybe Will Smiths, since its not officially Scientology, despite that most of the teachers are. If he thinks he can pull it off, she is going to a “real” scientology school. Hopefully Katie will manage to prevent that.

_they started deep auditing her in 2009 (maybe they gave her a pass in the early years to ease her into the hellish practice).
_2010 must have been one horrible Sci experience after the other. She started spending much more time with Tommy’s other children and started figuring out what growing up as a Sci exactly entails.
_2011 is probably when she started panicking over the situation she was in.
_2012 is when she figured out how to get out of there: contract ending, plus some really dirty stuff about Tommy and the Co$ to ensure a safe escape.

I never realized how much Suri looked like Tom when she was a baby. I saw a TV movie the other day of Katie after Dawson’s Creek before her nose job. She was so cute. Her nose goes kind of sideways now at some angles. I guess she hated her cute wider nose and wanted to be more sophisticated, but it suited her.

In the 2010 photos (pics with the white dress) they remind me so much of Sue Ellen and J.R. Ewing of the Eighties… Katie posing with those big sad eyes and a sad sad smile… oh well. :´)

I always thought that she was on some pills from a sudden point of time to calm her down or should I say to sedate her? Do you remember all those pictures of her looking almost high as hell with Tom dragging her after him?

Love sometimes comes like a dream and leaves like a nightmare. :-I – GO, Katie!!

I was never surprised that this marriage would end. Look at the body language, look at how broken down she began to look. The honeymoon was over a couple years into the marriage. This is why people get engaged for long periods of time because it gives a person to get to know someone more. I think they got married too soon. Whatever his and her ulterior motives were.

Whether or not Tom is gay/asexual whatever he must have incredible charisma in person. It is perfectly understandable that she would be swept away by him and agree to whatever he demanded until she finally grew up and saw the situation for what it was.

Ugh, only if she is a simpleton and grew up without any knowledge of the world. She was a successful Hollywood actress for years, not to mention a grown-ass 26 year-old woman. There is really no good excuse for her stupidity in getting into this mess.

I’m sure he was not the first big star she ever met. I’m also sure his megabucks and power were a big part of the draw. Isn’t that the definition of gold-digging? If he had been a 42 year-old mechanic, she wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

So I was absent from C/B for most of Friday so I missed the TomKat craziness. SO forgive me if this has already been discussed but does anyone think the Travolta scandal could have played a part in TomKat’s demise?…I mean, as the final straw that broke the camel’s back? I bet Katie knows so much more about that whole situation and was privy to a lot of details regarding the cover-up etc. Maybe she was just so completely disgusted by his behavior and Scientology in general that she finally just had enough?

I absolutely think that it was a factor. When Nicole was kicked out, both Tom and CO$ were pretty much untouchable and she had no room to maneuver. In this case, not only did Katie do the leaving, but also both Tom and CO$ have taken serious hits to their credibility. Katie has the upper hand here for now and I hope it will be enough to guarantee she gets Suri.

One interesting theory I read in the TomKat threads about Travolta is that all the “masseuse-gate” stuff has been instigated by the Cos as punishment for him wanting to defect. So if you buy that the main connection is that now two high profile people are trying to get away from Cos, Travolta and now Katie.

Just saw Larry Hackett from People mag on GMA he says her dad fired Katies security team, assistant, publicist everyone a few weeks ago.Wouldnt Tom know if she had COS minders? I remember a lady with short black hair and glasses who used to shadow her the 1st year .

What I want to know about and there hasnt been a lot of talk is why L. Rons daughter and David M. Father just left the cult? Anyone know or heard why? I stayed up all night reading on this crap and found that once you reached OT VIII its revealed that L. Ron was the anti christ and alot of really blasphemous things about Jesus. Since reading all that, I have major woolies and am on my 6th cup coffee and wondering now where David M. Wife vanished too. This shi* is cray cray.

The Village Voice has a series of blog posts on the recent defections from the “church.” The New Yorker ran an article in early 2011 I believe on Paul Haggis’ departure (Paul Haggis is Oscar-winning director/writer of “Crash,” and has written a lot of other good movies). Google Paul Haggis New Yorker Scientology, and it should be easy to find. The Tampa Bay Times also has a great series online of its investigations into the church, including the recent departures.

I don’t think there is any ulterior motive to the lack of sporting events in later years. Conner and Isabella got older, and maybe the more they got involved with CO$, the less time they had for extra curricular activities. Aren’t both of those kids majorly into CO$?

Connor is into acting now. He was off acting in his first movie. And he’s really into DJ’ing now, trying to build a career in that also. There’s been photos of gigs he’s been hired for. Bella is working somewhere regarding art. I can’t remember what she said in the interview. At one time she was interning at a fashion house or something I remember reading. She is now into working towards a career in art somehow, she said, and moved in with her boyfriend, also a Scientologist.

From: WWTD
It would be easy to paint Scientology as some scary cult that has given Katie Holmes no choice but to divorce Tom Cruise, and that’s because Scientology is a scary cult that has given Katie Holmes no choice but to divorce Tom Cruise.

So here’s a timeline explaining how we got here, and it’s kinda long but don’t skip to the end without paying me or else you’ll die of pneumonia (I’m just like Scientology).

February, 2004: This was after ‘Dawsons Creek’ but before ‘Batman Begins’, when Katie was still sort of famous and still very close to her family (all devout Catholics) back in Ohio. She was also single (foreshadowing).

March, 2004: Tom Cruise had been dating Penelope Cruz for the past 3 years but was single at the time, so a friend of his named David (who happens to be the leader of the Church of Scientology) came up with a plan; Step 1 was to name some famous girls. Step 2 was to rank how fuckable they were.

Now if you’re 14 or retarded or Maxim, that would be the entire plan. David on the other hand added Step 3, which was to have church employees set up auditions for a fake movie and trick those girls into dates with Tom Cruise.

The top 3 names, in order, were Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Alba. Kate Bosworth and Katie Holmes would be added later because a few weird voice mails scared off Garner, and Alba never bought the whole fake-audition thing. Tom was 0-2. Would things ever turn around?

April, 2004: Oh hey look, Scarlett Johansson got cast as the female lead in ‘Mission: Impossible 3′. What a coincidence, we were just talking about her.

February, 2005: I don’t understand it either but around this time Cruise briefly dated Sofia Vergara.

May, 2005: Cruise arranged a private dinner with Johansson at the Scientology center in Hollywood to discuss ‘Mission: Impossible’. Playing it cool, Mr. Smooth took this opportunity to push his sci-fi religion on her. Scarlett wisely ran away in horror, as fast as her little legs would carry her, then quickly decided she didn’t want to be in ‘Mission: Impossible 3′ anymore. She has yet to ever work with Cruise.

April 11, 2005: Under the impression that she’s auditioning for a movie, Katie Holmes (number 5 on the list) goes to his office in West Hollywood and meets Tom Cruise for the first time.

At this point “weird” becomes “ominous” because Katie then disappeared for 16 days, during which she fired her longtime agent and manager for no apparent reason and her family and friends couldn’t reach her.

April 27, 2005: Oh never mind there she is. In Rome. With her boyfriend Tom Cruise.

May 23, 2005: Cruise went on Oprah Winfrey to promote ‘War of the Worlds’, but instead jumped on the couch and screamed that he loved her (Katie, not Oprah. Oprah sucks).

June 13, 2005: Katie converts from Catholicism to Scientology.

June 16, 2005: Less than 8 weeks after they met for the first time, Tom and Katie get engaged.

April 16, 2006: Katie gave birth to their daughter Suri.

November 18, 2006: Tom and Katie got married in a 15th-century castle in Bracciano, Italy.

So she wasn’t pregnant by Chris Klein or anyone else when she hooked up with Tom – so much for that theory. TBS, I know the whole relationship is questionable with all the crazy Tom/co$ weirdness, but I think they both looked genuinely happy in the early days. I miss the happy, stylish Katie, and I hope she comes back again someday soon.

Fascinating. I’m so curious about the other ladies who were his first choices. What do they think of Katie? Have they watched TomKat and thought to themselves in horror, “Omg that could have been me.” Crazy.

you can see that she was very much in love with him but then she became a mother who cares for her child. Maybe she saw that this cult is very dangerous for Suri. Realy sad because i think that Tom is a great person but this cult brainwashed him and controlls him. I so like him as an actor and i feel so bad about the fact that he believes in this crazy cult. its a sad tragedy. I dont understand why the us goverment dont do anything against them, in some countrys of europe, sientology is forbidden.

I’m sure Tom was responsible for Katie firing her manager, getting a nose job, getting a boob reduction, changing her name to “Kate,” and ruining her career.

If they met at a supposed “movie audition” then why didn’t Tom ever cast her? Did he think her acting sucked THAT badly? Because all the women in Tom’s movie at the time (Mission Impossible III) also sucked, so it’s not like Katie had much competition. The whole “audition for a role” thing was total b.s. She should have known then (when he didn’t cast her) that something weird was happening. But I think she really did get brainwashed. Literally. And it took years to come out of it.

Yeah, I’m thinking a bit less of her now that I read she wasn’t anywhere near his first choice. All the other ladies saw the red flags and fled but not Katie. Makes her seem kind of like a big, gullible, quasi-dim chump.

I have often wondered if I would have done the same thing Katie did had I been given the chance? I might have … She’s probably walking away with at least $15 million; an incredibly cute kid she absolutely adores (and I do think the kid is Tom’s); hefty child support. True … a little crazy … but I think my mental health could survive it. But hindsight is 20/20 … and I don’t think I could fall in love with TC. I think Katie did fall in love with him and his Svengali ways. And I do think when the divorce is finalized her parents will get her back on track with thinking straight … and in the end, she’s going to be OK. Wow … wouldn’t it be great if she wrote a book? But I don’t think she would do that to Suri.

Seriously? I know you probably didn’t mean it to sound this way but to marry a guy for money and end up with a child as a parting gift? Yes, a little crazy!

Maybe it’s not so strange in Hollywood where stranger deals have surely been struck…but it’s not reassuring to think that most people would choose Katie’s deal to the traditional fairy tale of marrying for love and having a child as a result of that love.

You’re right, I don’t mean the precious child is a parting gift.
I’m just saying … in this day and age, in this economy … I think I would do it to never have to worry about money again. Women have been doing it since the beginning of time …it’s probably the second oldest profession.
I do think Katie loved him … and she probably still does love him. And I bet she’s running it over and over in her mind “what could I have done differently to save this?” She most assuredly thought she could change him (because women think they can change a man) … but when it comes to a man what you see is what you get.
Again, I think I’m strong enough to handle his personality and bullshit. I remain steadfast …

They were so creepy in the beginning!! Whoever did Tom’s plastic surgery is a god damned genius! He looked absolutely awful when they first got together! His hair was terrible too. I guess I never noticed it as much until now with the side-by-side comparisons. That surgeon was totally worth every penny.

To me it looks like something changed in 2008. Katie’s appearance changed and the way she looked at him changed as well. She didn’t seem as giddy as she did from 2005 till 2007 when the relationship was still fresh. I guess that happens to a lot of couples. It’s nice to be able to do this photo progression because we can’t do it with normal couples or even ourselves; sometimes it is too painful to see how happy many people are in the first several years of a relationship and marriage then wonder where it all went wrong. A lot of the time it is just a person coming to their senses and finally taking off the rose colored glasses to see who they’ve really married.

There is no question in my mind that Scientology played a large role in Katie’s unhappiness. However, I also think that there was just a natural decline in the relationship once Suri became such a huge responsibility. Katie ended up being a boring stay at home mother while Tom traveled and made movies. She probably had something different in mind when she decided to marry him. Probably expected him to help her career. Perhaps cast her in MI or help her land a few good roles in between being a wife and mother. In Tom’s mind, maybe he was perfectly content with Katie fading into the background as a full-time mother.